Coming home after a month away made me realise how thin was our veneer of habit. It's taken more than a month to retrieve all our good habits (I count blogging among them). Being away was wonderfully refreshing and produced the kind of serenity only distance and utter detachment can, but it makes it all the harder to again take up one's ordinary life. However, if Bilbo Baggins is to be believed journeys change you for the better. Ordinary life is larger when you come back to it, sweeter for being left so long. And the road is waiting at your door whenever you choose to travel it. Here's to habits, and hobbits, and coming home again.

Roads go ever ever on,Over rock and under tree,By caves where never sun has shone,By streams that never find the sea;Over snow by winter sown,And through the merry flowers of June,Over grass and over stone,And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever onUnder cloud and under star,Yet feet that wandering have goneTurn at last to home afar.Eyes that fire and sword have seenAnd horror in the halls of stoneLook at last on meadows greenAnd trees and hills they long have known.